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The comedian toys, teases mocks and plays as he works through his carefully convoluted and playfully abrasive ideas

Stewart Lee is one of comedy’s big success stories. No, he’s not filling the arenas like McIntyre, Bishop or Flanagan, and his BBC Two stand-up series is aimed at a niche audience: those of us who are happy to hang on as he works through his carefully convoluted and playfully abrasive ideas, basting his dry routines with reminders that they are routines, that comedy is a contrivance.

Yet in standing his ground and finding his crowd over the nine years since his breakthrough stand-up set — his first after co-creating Jerry Springer the Opera, which followed his years in a double